by Gail Sattler
God’s rules and boundaries gave freedom instead of restrictions. If she followed the guidelines of God’s Word for her life, she had the complete freedom, providing she made wise and moral choices, to follow the desires of her heart. As soon as they returned home, whatever was between them would be over. God had provided a way to make it last a little longer, and for that she was grateful.
She felt the envelope pulling out of her fingers. Lionel cupped her elbow and ushered her outside. “I think we have to talk. In private.”
They walked outside but didn’t go to the truck. It seemed like neither of them wanted it to be that private.
“You’re sure about this?”
All she could do was nod.
The color returned to his face, and he smiled. “Then let’s see what we’ve got.” He opened the flap and pulled out a stack of papers, mumbling as he read the top sheet. “We leave here and go to El Paso and pick up a part load, then we start a series of drop shipments. All the bills of lading are here. Directions too.” He paged through them one at a time, still muttering under his breath. “San Antonio, Oklahoma City, Birmingham, then the final drop in Buffalo.” He slapped the heel of his palm to his forehead, still holding the wad of papers, and squeezed his eyes shut. “This is the most screwball series of drop shipments I’ve ever seen! These are all short hops in between. We’ll be spending all our time in layovers!”
“Should we go back and take the Vancouver load?”
His face paled instantly. “No!” A blush spread over his cheeks, and his ears turned red. He cleared his throat, and his voice lowered in volume. “I mean, this is just fine. It’s just the kind of thing you would love as a beginning driver. This is what’s known as a paid tourist run. We can take our time, and you can probably even get some good pictures. Providing we’re somewhere it’s worth taking pictures.”
Gwen beamed. “Great! I was beginning to wonder if I would get a chance to use my camera.”
Lionel’s voice changed to a melodic intonation. “Then we shuffle off to Buff-a-lo.” He grinned and stuffed all the papers back into the envelope.
“If you start singing, I’m going back and taking the Vancouver load.”
He laughed and darted toward the truck before she could snatch the envelope out of his hand. “Catch me if you can!” he called out as he ran.
Gwen smiled and walked to the truck. She had done the right thing.
“I think you’re wrong. I don’t understand why you say this is going to be a wacky trip.” She’d entered the dates and the destinations in the computer three times, and every time the answers were the same.
“It’s because that program doesn’t allow for the most important variable.”
“I thought you said this program was the best.”
“It doesn’t account for fickle clients.”
“Oh.”
Gwen figured out that if all went well, since today was Thursday, they could be at the final destination Saturday, which she figured wasn’t bad at all. Lionel had just laughed and reminded her that the customers didn’t keep the same hours they did.
So far all had gone well. They’d arrived in El Paso at six in the evening on Wednesday. It had taken an hour for the customer to finish loading. They’d eaten another wonderful truck stop meal and left at eight. It was now Thursday just after sunrise. They were going to pull into San Antonio, the first point where they’d have to unload something, and then they would keep going.
“Let’s go to the customer’s warehouse first. We can eat and shower after we unload, which should take us to lunch time.”
“Sure.” Gwen packed up the computer. She was becoming accustomed to using Lionel’s laptop while they were moving. Using her big desktop computer at the school would never be the same.
“Who gets to back it in?”
Gwen patted her seatbelt. “I’m a passenger. You do it.”
Everything went smoothly, and soon they were at the truck stop outside of town. After they finished fueling and showered, Gwen took the laptop into the truck stop and downloaded their E-mail, then took the laptop into the restaurant.
Lionel sipped his coffee while she opened the Inbox.
“You’re like a kid with a new toy with that thing,” he grumbled. “Will you give it a rest?”
“I told you, I’m expecting something from my brother. There’s nothing for me, but you got something from your friend Randy. The subject title is ‘Happy Birthday.’ Is it your birthday?”
He took another long sip. “Whatever.”
“It is! Why didn’t you tell me? How old are you?”
“It’s not a big deal. I’m thirty-two.”
“Well, happy thirty-second birthday. I could have at least gotten you a card.”
“I don’t want a card. It’s just clutter in the truck.”
“Then I can get you a piece of cake. Give me the dessert menu.”
“If you have even the remotest idea of ordering a piece of cake with a candle on it, I’m leaving.”
“If you think I’d do that to you, then you don’t know me very well.”
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “Someone did that to me once, and I never want to go through that again for the rest of my life.”
Gwen watched him stare into the bottom of his coffee cup. On a number of occasions she’d been the instigator to set up singing waiters, sparklers for candles on a cake, and the whole package for a birthday in a restaurant. However, she would never consider doing that to Lionel. Whoever did that must not have known him very well. “I can’t imagine who would do that to you.”
“It was my ex-fiancée,” he mumbled.
Gwen couldn’t stifle a gasp.
“Yes, I was engaged once. A few weeks before what was supposed to be our wedding day, I came home early and found her with someone else.”
“Oh … Lionel … I’m so sorry …”
He swished around the dribbles in the bottom of the cup, not looking up. “Don’t be sorry. It hurt at the time, but shortly after that I met Jesus. We wouldn’t have been right for each other, I can see that now.”
Gwen thought of the few relationships she’d had with men, none of which had ever come close to being serious. “Still, it must have been awful.”
“I lived.” He checked his watch. “I don’t feel like sitting around here. Let’s go.”
Not a word was said as they walked to the truck, but she didn’t like him being so sullen. It wasn’t like him. She didn’t want to make a big deal of it, if Lionel didn’t want a fuss. Still, everyone deserved something special on their birthday. She knew they would be driving straight through to Oklahoma City, so she didn’t have time to buy him a small gift or even a card, which she would have done, despite his calling such things clutter.
While he inserted the key in the lock, Gwen laid the laptop on the running board and stepped between Lionel and the truck.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
She cupped his chin in her hands. “Happy birthday, Lionel.”
Then she kissed him. Not just a little brush-on-the-lips kiss, but a real, big, loud, smacking kiss. She even made a popping sound when she pulled away.
“Hey!”
She snatched up the laptop, pulled the keys out of the lock, opened the door, and hopped in before he had a chance to regain his bearings. “I thought you said we should go. I’m driving.”
By the time they pulled into Oklahoma City it was ten at night. The client’s warehouse was closed up, but a night watchman opened the gate and told them to back the trailer in and leave it until morning.
Since they had all the time in the world, Gwen backed it in, doing it slowly and trying it a number of times just for the practice. Together they cranked down the dolly legs and set the trailer brakes.
Gwen peeked under the trailer and called out to Lionel. “If you knew this would happen where we’d be stuck here like this in the middle of the night, we should have stopped in Dallas.”
“What for?”
“I’ve never been to Dallas.”
Lionel shook his head. “We’re in a truck and pulling a fifty-three-foot trailer. We can’t exactly go touring around the city and visiting all the local hot spots.”
“I could at least have taken some pictures.”
“You got a picture of the skyline.”
Gwen rested her hands on her hips. “That was from out the window, and we were moving at the time.”
“Well, here we are in Oklahoma City, and we’re not going anywhere. Take all the pictures you want.”
“It’s midnight!”
“There’s lots of stars to take pictures of. Look. There’s the Big Dipper.” He pointed up. “There’s Polaris, which the Big Dipper points to. It’s the tail of Ursa Minor, which is supposed to be a bear, but most people call it the Little Dipper.”
“That’s fascinating. How did you know that?”
“I spend a lot of time in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night, so I’ve had time to study the sky. It’s really quite remarkable.”
Gwen looked up. Not a cloud disturbed the crystal-clear images of the night. The beauty of God’s creation shining above had always awed her, but it had never touched her like right now. “It doesn’t have the same feel from the industrial estate as it does from a deserted rest area off the highway, does it?”
“Nope.”
If it wasn’t for the concrete and buildings around them, the setting would have been rather romantic. The quiet night, the beauty of the stars above, and, most of all, the kind and handsome man beside her. The night watchman had gone back to his post at the gate, leaving them alone. It was the perfect time and place for Lionel to kiss her, and not a silly, smacking kiss like she’d given him on his birthday, but a real, sizzling, melt-your-socks-off type of kiss.
“It’s late. We’ve got to get up early in the morning and get going, so I’ll drop you off at a motel. I’ll drive.”
Lionel couldn’t believe he was doing this. He’d consented to wait inside the truck while Gwen ran into a large wholesale mega-store for a few groceries. He again checked his watch and questioned her definition of the word quick. He’d managed to get some reading done, but he’d been too distracted to really concentrate. He wanted to be with her, and the waiting was killing him.
Once they arrived back home, he didn’t know how he was ever going to run singles again. At first he’d worried that being with someone would drive him nuts, but instead he was going nuts without her. She’d been gone less than an hour.
“I’m back. Let’s go.”
She tossed a small bag into the fridge, and then hoisted a large box behind the seat. A bag around it prevented him from seeing the markings.
“What in the world is that?”
“It’s a surprise. I thought you were in a rush to get moving.”
He studied the box. For the size of it, apparently it wasn’t heavy.
“Mind your own business! Now get going.”
He almost made a teasing comment about a nagging wife but stopped himself in time. He wondered what it would be like to be married to Gwen. If he’d been anxious for her return when she was only at the store, he could only imagine what it would be like during the long separations when she was tied to the school and he was out on the road.
They picked up the trailer, turned the music on loud, and then headed to Birmingham.
Conversation was light and playful until mid-afternoon, when Gwen was suddenly silent. After a couple of minutes she spoke again. “I’ve been thinking.” Lionel cringed. “Is something wrong?”
“If we just drove like normal, we’d arrive Saturday at three-thirty in the morning, and no one is going to be there. I was thinking that we should kill some time out here. Relax, take it easy, and enjoy ourselves away from the city. We really don’t have to be there until eight-thirty in the morning, so let’s do that.”
He had a feeling there was more to her suggestion than met the eye. “What have you got in mind?”
“I want you to stop at the next rest area.”
That was easy. Too easy. But he did anyway.
Once in the parking area, he killed the engine and reached for the door handle.
“No! You wait in the truck.”
“Gwen … you’re making me nervous.”
“I have a surprise for you.”
Now she really was making him nervous.
She pulled the box outside, but before she closed the truck door, she shot him a quelling look.
Lionel laughed. The woman could definitely hold her own, and he loved it. If they did pursue their relationship after their driving together was over, he knew Gwen possessed the strength to endure the separations. However, he wasn’t sure he did.
“You can come out now!”
Gwen stood beside the picnic table, the large white bag covering something large in the center.
“Tah-dah!” She whipped off the bag.
“It’s a portable barbecue.”
She grinned from ear to ear. “Yes!”
“Okay …”
“I’m going to barbecue supper today. We’ve got lots of time.”
Visions of baked potatoes and medium-rare T-bone steak danced through his mind. He loved barbecued corn on the cob, steamed to perfection after being wrapped tightly in tinfoil. Or mushrooms would be even better.
“I bought those special foot-long wieners, and whole wheat hot dog buns. And carrots. I even got a can of beans. I didn’t know if you had a can opener, so I bought one, just in case. I love cold beans.”
“Uh … sounds delicious.”
Her grin widened. “This is my favorite camping meal. When I first started talking about driving a truck with Uncle Chad, I compared it to camping. Now that I’ve been doing it, I can see some things are the same, but not really.”
“That makes sense.”
“Never mind. Here, you scrape the carrots.”
The domesticness of what they were doing hit him in the gut like a sucker punch. Gwen chattered away about camping and the school and her family, but all he could think about was what it would be like if they had a family of their own. About what it would be like to spend quality time together. Kids playing at their feet, and then settling in for some private time together when all was quiet for the night.
The healthy whole wheat buns seemed to contrast the questionable food value of the wieners, but he was surprised to find how much he enjoyed the simple meal. He also admired Gwen’s ingenuity at the small disposable propane cartridge she’d purchased rather than the large cylinder on most propane barbecues.
“You’ve been awful quiet. What’s on your mind?”
Marriage. Kids. A house in the country. A dog. Little league games. “Nothing in particular.”
When all was tidied up and the small barbecue packed up inside the truck, they lay on their backs on the grass to enjoy the sunset until the stars began to wink their way out in the evening sky. When they started to feel the chill from lying on the grass, they walked back to the truck and headed to Alabama.
Gwen checked her watch. “What’s taking them so long? I thought this was supposed to be a priority shipment.”
“This is another thing that the computer program doesn’t take into account. Overtime. The people who got called in are on overtime since it’s Saturday. One of them told me that if they work for four hours they get paid for the day, at time-and-a-half. So if I count on my fingers correctly, we will be out of here at precisely one in the afternoon.”
“That’s not right.”
“That’s the way it goes.”
Gwen sighed. She knew that as a teacher she was sheltered from such things, but she knew the course of human nature. To be delayed by what she felt was a worker cheating an employer, even if it wasn’t her employer, annoyed her. “We don’t have any choice, do we?”
“Nope.”
By the time they were done, Gwen was more than ready to go. She almost laughed at herself. When she’d first
started driving with Lionel, his compulsion to always keep the load moving annoyed her, and now she was no different.
This time Lionel had a nap in the afternoon, and she slept earlier in the evening than usual as they traveled. Both of them were wide awake in the middle of the night, so rather than getting a motel, they kept going. They caught the sunrise just over the New York state line. Since she was driving, Lionel took a picture out the window with her camera.
“I’m going to miss being in church on Sunday,” Gwen sighed. “I can’t remember the last time I missed a service, I mean, not counting since I started driving with Uncle Chad.”
“We don’t necessarily have to miss. Lots of the truck stops have small chapels for truckers passing through.”
“Really?”
“Really. I just happen to have a directory of where they are.” He pulled a little book out of the glove box. “We’re in luck. We’re not far away from one right now.”
“Really?”
He grinned. “Really.”
Gwen pulled into the parking lot of the truck stop as directed, and they walked around the back to a long, narrow building that looked suspiciously like a converted trailer. The only windows were in the back doors, and it was so small there was room only for one row of pews down the side, with a small altar at the front. Gwen thought it rather cozy, and not too different from the Funks’ little church, except this one was a very miniature makeshift version. She noted Bibles in the pews, as well as tracts everywhere, including on a small table in the back.
At the front, a fiftyish man dressed in a western style shirt and jeans, who was probably the minister, was talking and laughing with another man whom Gwen pegged as another trucker.
“It’s so early. What time do things usually start?”
“Usually at seven-thirty. This is all volunteer time for the minister. Services are short. After they’re over, no one hangs around because most of the ministers have their own congregations to go to for regular Sunday services. Besides, we’re all wayfaring strangers who have schedules to keep for early Monday and have to keep moving.”
“That makes sense, I guess.”
A few more men entered while they spoke. Right at seven-thirty the minister stood at the front and welcomed everyone.
